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THE 



FASHIONABLE WORLD 
DISPLAYED, 



THE 



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FASHIONABLE WORLD 



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DISPLAYED. 



FROM THE FIFTH LONDON EDITION. 



" VELUTI IN SPECULUM." 

THE STAGE. 



^/ NEW-YORK 

PRINTED BY HOPKINS AND SEYMOUR,"" 

FOR J, OSBORN, BOOKSELLER AND LIBRARIAN, 
NO. 13, PARK. 




1806. 



TO 
THE RIGHT REVEREND 

BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D. 

LORD BISHOP OF LONDON^ 

NOT MORE DISTINGUISHED 

BY 

HIS ELOQUENCE AS A PREACHER, 

«IS VIGILANCE AS A PRELATE, 

HIS SANCTITY AS A CHRISTIAN, 

AND 

HIS VARIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

AS 

A SCHOLAR AND A MAN, 

THAN BY 

HIS INDEFATIGABLE EXERTIONS 

TO DETECT THE ERRORS, 

REBUKE THE FOLLIES,' 

AND 

REFORM THE VICES 

OF THE 

FASHIONABLE WORLD, 

THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPT TO BENEFIT 

THAT PART OF SOCIETY, 

BY MEANS TOO FREQUENTLY EMPLOYED TO CORRUPT IT, 

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS lordship's FAITHFUL 

AND DUTIFUL SERVANT, 

JOHN OWEN, 

A 2 



INTRODUCTION, 



I HAVE often been surprised, that among the 
many descriptions which ingenious writers 
have given of places and people comparative- 
ly insignificant, no complete and systematic ac- 
count has yet been written of the Fashionable 
World. It is true, that our poets and carica- 
turists have honoured this people with a great 
share of their notice, and many particulars, 
not a little edifying, have been made known 
through the medium of these admirable pub- 
lications. It is also true, that our prose-writ- 
ers have occasionally cast a very pertinent 
glance over this fairy ground. Some of these 
have even gone so far, as to write absolute 
treatises upon certain parts of the Fashiona- 



Vlll 

ble character. Mrs. More, for example, has 
delineated the religion, and Lord Chesterfield 
the morals of this singular people, with the 
greatest exactness and precision. Nor would 
it be just to overlook the very acceptable la- 
bours of those writers, who, in their Court- 
calendars and Court-almanacs, bring us ac- 
quainted, from time to time, with the modes 
of dress which prevail in the Fashionable 
World, and the names of its most distinguish- 
ed inhabitants. But after all that has been 
done towards exhibiting the manners and un- 
folding the character of this splendid commu- 
nity, much remains to be done : for though 
certain details have been well enough handled, 
yet I repeat, that a complete and systematic 
account of the Fashionable World, is still a 
desideratum in cosmography. 

I am far from pretending to either the abi- 



IX 

lity or the design of supplying this deficiency. 
The utmost that I propose to myself, is to 
bring more particalars into a group, than 
former writers have done ; and to exhibit an 
outline, upon which others of more enlarged 
experience may improve. It seems to me of 
great importance to the interests of society, 
that its members should be known to each 
other; and of this I am persuaded, that if 
there be one description of people, the know- 
ledge of whose genuine character would be 
more edifying to mankind than another, it is 
— ^the pepple of Fashion. 



Xll 

CHAP. VI. PAGE 74. 

Dress — Amusements* 

CHAP. VII. PAGE 87. 

Happiness of the People estimated, 
CHAP. VIII. PAGE 97. 

Defect of the System — Plans of Reform- 
Conclusion. 



FASHIONABLE WORLD, 
CHAP. I. 

SITUATION BOUNDARIES CLIMATE 

SEASONS. 

1 HOUGH I do not undertake to write a geo- 
graphical account of the Fashionable World, 
yet I should think myself highly culpable 
were I to pass over this interesting part of the 
subject wholly in silence. My readers must be 
at the same time cautioned, not to form their 
expectations of the geography of Fashion from 
that of other countries. The fact is, that the 
whole community which sustains this appel- 
lation, extensive as it is, can scarcely be 
treated as having any peculiar or exclusive lo- 
cality. The individuals who compose it are 

B 



not, it is true, absolute wanderers, like the 
tribes of Arabia, nor yet are they regular set- 
tlers, like the convicts at Botany Bay : but 
moveable and migratory to a certain degree, 
and to a certain degree stationary and perma- 
nent, they live among the inhabitants of the 
parent country; neither absolutely mixing 
with them, nor yet actually separated from 
them. 

This paradoxical state of the people renders 
it not a little difficult to reduce their territory 
within the rules of geographical description. 
They have, it is true, their degrees and their 
circles ; but these terms are used by people 
of Fashion in a sense so different from that 
which geographers have assigned them, that 
they afford no sort of assistance to the topo- 
graphical inquirer. It is, I presume, on this 
account, that in all the improvements which 
have been made upon the globe, nothing has 
been done towards settling the meridian of 
Fashion; and though the Laplanders, the 
Hottentots, and the Esquimaux, have places 



assigned them, no more notice is taken of 
the people of Fashion than if they either did 
not exist, or were not worthy of being men- 
tioned. 

The only expedient, therefore, to which a 
writer can resort, in this dearth of geographi- 
cal materials, is that of designating the terri- 
tory of Fashion by the ordinary names of those 
places through which it passes. And this is, 
in fact, strictly conformable to that usage 
which prevails in the language and communi- 
cation of the people themselv^es i for London, 
Tunbridge, Bath, Weymouth, &e. are, in 
their mouths, names for little else than the 
lands and societies of Fashion which they re- 
spectively contain. 

Now, the portion of each place to which 
Fashion lays claim, is neither definite as to its 
dimensions, nor fixed as to its locality. In 
London, a small proportion of the whole is Fa- 
shionable ; in Bath, the proportion is greater : 
and in some watering-places of the latest ere- 



alion, Fashion puts in her demand for nearly 
the whole. The locality of its domains is 
also contingent and mutable. Various cir- 
cumstances concur in determining when a 
portion of ground shall become Fashionable, 
. and when it shall cease to be such. The only 
rule of any steadiness with which I am ac- 
quainted, and which chiefly relates to the me- 
tropolis, is that which prescribes a western la- 
titude ^ : if this be excepted (which indeed 
admits of no relaxation,) events of very little 
moment decide all the rest. If, for example, 
a Duchess, or the wife of some burgeois-gen- 
tilhomme, v/ho has purchased the privileges 
of the order, should open a suite of rooms for 
elegant society in any new quarter, the soil is 
considered to receive a sort of consecration by 
such a circumstance ; and an indefinite por- 
tion of the vicinity is added to the territory of 

* For the geographical solecism of '* a western lai'Uude,^^ 
the author has only to plead that the people of whom he 
treats acknowledge no points of the compass but those of 
east and v)est, and that the term longitude has scarcely any 
place in their language. 



Fashion. If, on the other hand, a shoj be 
opened, a sign hung out, or any symptom of 
business be shown, in a quarter that has hi- 
therto been a stranger to every sound but the 
rattling of carriages, the thunder of knockers, 
and the vociferation of coachmen and ser- 
vants, it is ten to one but the privileges of 
Fashion are withdrawn from that place j and 
the whole range of buildings is gradually given 
up to those who are either needy enough to 
keep shops, or vulgar enough to endure them. 
Now, it happens as a consequence from this 
adoption of new soil and disfranchisement of 
old, that the territory of Fashion is extremely 
irregular and interrupted. A traveller, deter- 
mined to pursue its windings, would soon be 
involved in a most mysterious labyrinth ; his 
track would be crossed by portions of country 
which throw him repeatedly out of his beat : 
insomuch that his progress v/ould resemble 
that of a naturalist, who, in tracing the course 
of a mineral through the^bowels of the earth, 
encounters various breaks and intersections, 
and often finds the corresponding parts of the 
b3 



same stratum unaccountably separated from 
each other. 

It would be only fatiguing the reader to say 
more upon the topographical part of my sub- 
ject. It is obvious, from what has been stated, 
that the regions of Fashion, considered as a 
whole, are rather numerous than compact: 
and indeed such difference of opinion subsists 
among the people themselves upon the terri- 
tories which are entitled to that name, that 
no correct judgment can be pronounced upon 
a question of so much controversy. Thus 
much, however, may be affirmed, that there is 
scarcely a market-town in the kingdom in 
which some portion of land is not invested with 
Fashionable privileges, and designated by such 
terms as mark the wish of the inhabitants to 
have it considered as forming part and parcel 
of the demesnes of Fashion. 

The Climate of Fashion is almost entirely 
factitious and artificial ; and consequently dif- 
fers in many material respects from the natu- 



ral temperature of those respective places over 
which its jurisdiction extends. Though changes 
from heat to cold, and vice versa, are very 
common among these people, yet heat may 
be said to be the prevailing character of the 
climate. They appear to me to have but two 
seasons in the year; these they call, in con- 
formity to common language rather than to 
just calculation, Winter and Summer. Of 
summer little is known ; for it seems to be a 
rule among this people to disband and disperse 
at the approach of it, and not to rally or re- 
unite till the winter has fairly commenced. 
Though, therefore, they exist somehow * or 

* This somehow and somewhere existence of people of 
Fashion, might lead a stranger to svippose that they have 
no permanent dwelling-place. He must, however, be told, 
that while they are thus migrating from place to place 
without comfort and without respect, many of them are 
actually turning their backs upon the conveniences of a 
family mansion, and the influence of a dependent tenant- 
ry. This disposition to emigration in persons of distinc- 
tion has been so admirably noticed in a late elegant and 
interesting work, that I cannot refuse myself the plea- 
sure of transcribing the passage : 



8 



somewhere during the summer months, they 
wish it to be considered that they do not exist 
under their Fashionable character. They wash 
themselves m the sea, drink laxative waters, 
lose a little money at billiards, or catch a few 
colds at public rooms ; but all these things 
they do as individuals, and wholly out of their 
corporate capacity as members of the commu- 
nity of Fashion. So that in their mode of dis- 

" That there exists at present amongst us a lamentable 
want of rural philosophy, or of that wisdom which teaches 
a man at once to enjoy and to improve a life of retirement, 
is, I think, a point too obvious to be contested. Whence 
is it else that the ancient mansions ofour nobility and gen- 
try, notwithstanding ail the attractions of rural beauty, and 
every elegance of accommodation, can no longer retain 
their owners, who, at the approach of winter, pour into the 
metropolis, and even in the summer months wander to the sea- 
coast, or to some other place of Fashionable resort ? This unset- 
tled humour in the midst of such advantages, plainly ar- 
gues much inward disorder, and points out the need as well 
as the excellency of that discipline which can inspire a pure 
taste of nature, furnish occupation in the peaceful labours 
of husbandry, and, what is nobler still, open the sources 
of moral and intellectual enjoyment." — Preface to Rural 
Philosophy y by Ely Bates, Esq, p. 9. 



posing of the summer, they invert the stand- 
ing rule of most other animals ; they choose 
the fair season for their torpid state, and show 
no signs of life but during the winter. It is 
not easy to sa}^ exactly when the winter begins 
in the Fashionable World ; an inhabitant of 
Bath would have one mode of reckoning, and 
an inhabitant of London another. To do 
justice to the subject, the commencement of 
winter ought to be regulated by the former of 
these places, and the close of it by the latter. 
Supposing, therefore, that it begins some 
time in November, there can be no difficulty 
in settling its duration ; for the 4th of June is 
by a tacit, yet binding ordinance, considered 
as a limit over which a Fashionable winter can 
never pass. 

There are many circumstances in which the 
climate of fashion stands peculiarly distin- 
guished from every other. It has already been 
intimated that, heat is its prevailing charac- 
teristic : it is, moreover, not a little remark- 
able, that this heat is at its highest point in 



10 



the winter season; and that the inhabitants 
often perspire more freely when the snow is 
upon the ground than they do in thie dog-days. 
The truth is, that, as was before said, the 
climate is wholly created by artificial circum- 
stances, and the natural temperature of the 
air is completely done away. The sort of com- 
munication which these people keep up with 
each other, is considered to require a species 
of apparatus which fills their atmosphere with 
an immoderate degree of phlogiston. Besides 
this, they are notoriously fond of assembling 
'in insufferable crowds; and travellers have 
assured us, that they have often witnessed from 
ten to twelve hundred persons suffocating each 
Other within a space which would scarcely 
have afforded convenient accommodation for a 
dozen families. And this may enable us in 
some measure to account for the little benefit 
which modish invalids are said to derive from 
their frequent removals to the healthiest spots 
in the universe. The original object of such a 
prescription was doubtless to change the air; 
and certainly no expedient could be better. 



11 



miagm€d for bracing a constitution relaxed by 
too intense applicadon to the business of a 
Fashionable life. But the usages of ihe order 
render a change of air to any salutary purpose, 
utterly impracticable : for the weakest mem- 
bers of the community consider themselves 
bound to kindle a fiame wherever they go ; and 
thus they breathe the same phlogisticated air 
all over the world. 

They profess to adopt the ordinary divisions 

of time ; and talk like other people of Day 

and Night : but their mode of computing each 

is so vague and unnatural, that inhabitants of^ 

the same meridian with themselves scarcely 

understand what they meail by the terms. A 

great part of this difficulty may possibly arise 

from the very small portion of solar light with 

which they are visited. For certain it is, that 

no people upon earth have less benefit from the 

light of the sun than the people of Fashion ; 

so that if it were not for torches, candles, and 

Argand lamps, they would scarcely ever see 

each others' faces. 



IS 



With regard to the constitutions of these 
people, I have been inclined to think them 
naturally robust, from observing the astonish- 
ing heat and fatigue which they endure. And 
in this respect the women have appeared to 
evince an uncommon degree of hardiness ; 
for, besides that they wear on every occasion 
a slighter species of clothing than the men, I 
have been confidently told that many among 
them will appear, in the severest part' of the 
season, with dresses of such transparency and 
scantiness, as convince every beholder that 
they^who wear them are utter strangers to the 
weaknesses of the sex. There is, however, 
some room for doubting whether the air which 
this people breathe, and the usages which 
prevail among them, are favourable to the 
constitution. Their patience of fatigue has 
been thought to be wholly the result of habit, 
and their hardiness has been conjectured to 
be little more than an air of extravagance and 
bravado. .The frequent transitions which they 
make from heat to cold, and back again from 
cold to heat (perhaps half a dozen times in as 



15 



many hours,) must very materially diminish 
the physical strength of their bodies. Certain 
it is that their natural countenances do not 
betray the usual symptoms of health j and it 
IS, I believe, admitted, that instances of ex- 
traordinary longevity are not very common 
among them. 



u 



CHAP. II. 

GOVERNMENT LAWS, &ff. 

1 HE History of the Fashionable World is a 
sort of undertaking, which, to be accurately 
executed, would require abundantly more lei- 
sure and diligence than I could afford to be- 
stow upon it : and I very much doubt whe- 
ther, after all, one reader out of a hundred 
would be at the pains of perusing it. The 
fact is, that the members of this community 
are not sufficiently substantial to f®rm histo- 
rical pictures. Their employments are not of 
a nature to make their memory an object with 
mankind. Hence, though they make a splen- 
did appearance in a ball-room, they appear to 
little advantage in a record ; and, like the 
dancing figures in a magic lantern, they seem 
to have answered the end of their being when 
they have afforded an evening's amusement. 
For these and other reasons which might be 



15 



assigned, I shall content myself with giving 
a brief account of their Polity and Laws ; re- 
ferring those of my readers who are desirous 
of further information upon their history, to 
novels and romances, and to such chronicles 
of antiquity as have preserved the memorials 
of obsolete and superannuated manners. 

It is a task of no ordinary difficulty to con- 
vey any tolerable idea of this people, in their 
aggregate or national capacity. Consisting, 
as they do, of various and detached societies, 
they are yet considered to possess a sort of 
federal relation among each other ; and to 
unite into an imaginary whole, under the col- 
lective denomination of the Fashionable World. 
It is under this aggregate character that they 
take their rank in society ; and the appellation 
which denotes their community is recognized 
by the tradesmen who advertise for their cus- 
tom, and the politicians who discourse of their 
affairs. A very handsome proportion of the 
daily newspapers is devoted to their service ; 
and intelligence from their drawing-rooms is 



16 



reported with as much regularity as that which 
is derived from ;he first cabineti in Europe. 
Indeed the minuleiitss with which i.heir routs 
and dances, their dresses and dainties, the ex- 
pres^-iv ns they utter, the <<.' i:.any they keep, 
and the excesses they comnriit, are detai;e({, is 
at once an evidence that these people are con- 
sidered to hr.ve a corporate exislenie ; and tiiat 
no little consequence is attached to th: i.r pro- 
ceedings. I wish, with all m}' heart, they 
thought a little more of this ; thev would then 
scarcely run into such extravagances as make 
them objects of ridicule to one part of society, 
and dangerous examples to the other. 

Their Population is more fluctuating and 
uncertain than that of any people upon the 
face of the earth. There are among them 
certain tribes or families distinguished by dif- 
ferent descendible titles, who are said to claim 
a sort of prescriptive right to the name of 
Fashionables. In these the federal appellation 
continues hereditary ; and it is an axiom 
among the body, that people of Quality (for 



17 

this is the term by which they designate the 
titled gentry) can never be out of Fashion. 

This, however, it must be observed, is their 
own representation of the matter ; and I am 
inclined to suspect that there is no little ma- 
nagement at the bottom of it. There is some- 
thing, no doubt, very splendid in the idea of 
including all the families of rank within the 
limits of Fashion ; and it is a mark of no con- 
temptible policy to have constructed an ajiiom 
which cuts off their retreat. But surely it 
would at least be decent to allow the gentry 
of the realm to have a voice in the business. 
I cannot but think that if they were fairly con- 
sulted, many would decline the honour of exer- 
cising this prescriptive privilege ; and that per- 
sons of the first distinction in the country would 
be found among that number. 

However, these dignified families are, ac- 
cording to Fashionable computation, almost 
the only standing members of the community ; 
and, if these be excepted, all the rest of their 
c 2 



18 



body is mutable in the extreme. There is a 
perpetual reciprocation of numbers between 
them and the society in which they reside. 
Scarcely an hour passes without some inter- 
change. The gossip of every day announces 
that some have migrated from the region of 
Fashion, and that others have made their ajD- 
pearance within it for the first time. The 
causes which produce these variations, and 
the reasons by which they are defended, are 
in some instances too mysterious, and in others 
too frivolous, to become subjects of recital. 
In general it may be affirmed, that though 
persons become Fashionable with the con- 
currence of their will, they cease to be such 
against it. For, if a few accidental converts 
to plain sense and sober piety be excepted, the 
greater part of those who retire, have been 
superseded ; and resign their places, only be- 
cause they cannot any longer retain them. 
However that be, the fluctuation thus occa- 
sioned in the numbers and characters of those 
who compose this Fashionable community, 
diversifies its complexion daily j and renders a 



19 



precise account of its population and totality 
utterly impossible. 

The form of government subsisting among 
this people^ so far as it can be traced out, is 
Oligarchical, and the spirit of it is absolute 
and despotical. The few in whose hands the 
supreme authority resides, do not consist of 
any regular or definite number, nor are they 
confined to any particular sex. In general 
they are composed of persons out of both sexes, 
who, while they exercise a separate influence 
in things relating to the sexes respectively, 
possess also a common jurisdiction in matters 
of universal concern. 

The governing few are not invested with 
their authority by any formalities of lawj 
nor do they obtain their station by any specific 
qualifications. The magistracy which they 
hold appears to be neither hereditary nor elec- 
tive, but contingent. The term of their coui- 
tinuance in power is also as indefinite and ca* 
pricious as the right by which they acquire it^ 



^0 



One thing however is certain, that as a moral 
reputation has no influence in recommending 
them to the stations they fill, so the forfeiture 
of it in no degree weakens the stability, or 
abridges the duration of their power. That a 
government of this independent description 
should exist in the heart of the British empire, 
an imperium in imperio^ will appear scarcely 
credible to my reader. He may, howevxr, rely 
upon it that the fact is as I have stated it ; 
and if he should express his wonder that such 
contempt of the sovereign authority as it even- 
tually leads to, has not been properly resisted, 
he will only do what thousands have done be- 
fore him. But to return — 

The laws by which the government of 
Fashion is administered, like the common law 
of England, are unwritten ; and derive their 
force, as that does, from usage and prescrip- 
tion. The only code of any note among this 
people, is that which they distinguish by the 
collective appellation of the LAW OF HO- 
NOUR. This extraordinary code has been 



%l 



defined to be " a system of rules constructed 
by people of Fashion, and calculated to facili- 
tate their intercourse Avilh one another *." 
Now if this definition be a just one (and I pre- 
sume it is, from the high authority by which it 
is giv=^en,) it will afford us no indifferent help 
towards unfolding the mysteries of Fashionable 
jurisprudence. 

It seems then that the Law of Honour^ by 
which people of Fashion are said to be govern- 
ed. Is wholly and exclusively designed to make 
them acceptable to each other. , Now, not to 
mention other things, persons in a Fashionable 
sphere cannot be strictly agreeable to each 
other, unless they are well dressed j nor can 
that intercourse which they chiefly value, be 
pleasantly maintained, without splendid equips 
ages, choice wines, and sumptuous entertain- 
ments. As, therefore, the necessity of the case 
requires such accommodations, the Law of 
Honour^ to say the least, does not look very 
nicely into the means by which they may have 

* Vide Paley's Mor, Philos, vol, i. p. 1, 



22 



been procured. Hence it follows by the fairest 
inference, that a man of Fashion is not at all 
the less respectable in his own circle, merely 
because he is what the rest of the world calls 
unjust. For whatever may be the law else- 
where, a man of Fashion can owe nothing to 
his inferiors : and his character will therefore 
suffer no stain, though he should have broken 
his word a thousand times with the reptile that 
made his clothes, built his carriage, or furnish- 
ed his table. 

This law is also distinguished by many 
other features of toleration, which well ac- 
count for the respect and influence that it 
possesses in the Fashionable World. By a 
spirit of accommodation of which there is no 
other example, it overlooks, if it does not- 
even encourage, a variety of actions which in 
the mouth of a moralist would be absolute 
vices J and which, to say the truth, are 
scarcely deserving of a much better name. 
Thus, a man may debauch his tenant's 
daughter, seduce the v/ife of his friend, and 



^5 



be faithless and even brutal to his own, and 
yet be esteemed a man of honour (which is 
the same as a man of Fashion,) and have a 
right to make any man fight him who says he 
is not. In like manner, a man may blas- 
pheme God, and encourage his children arid 
servants to do the same ; he may neglect the 
interests and squander the property of his 
family ; he may be a tyrant in his house, ^ and 
a bully in the streets; he may lie abed all 
day, and drink and game all night ; and yet 
be a most dutiful subject to the Law of Honour, 
and a shining character in the society of 
Fashion. 

, There is, I own, much convenience in all 
this, and some consistency. Persons who 
live only for this world, should have a propor- 
tionable latitude allowed them for the employ- 
ment of their animal propensities ; and the 
law which provides for the regulation of their 
conduct, should have a special reference to 
this consideration. Supposing, therefore, that 
people of Fashion ought to exist, they must^ 



u 



have such a law as that which they possess* So 
that, taking the law of honour in this connex- 
ion, I cannot but think it a masterpiece of po- 
litical contrivance. 

At the same time, I cannot agree with those 
who have been led to consider this table of 
Fashionable jurisprudence as deserving a place 
in the temple of morality. Into this error a 
celebrated writer appears to have fallen in his' 
Treatise of Moral Philosophy. For having 
defined morality to be " that science which 
teaches men their duty and the reasons of it," 
he proceeds to cite the Lazv of Honour as one 
of the three rules by which men are governed. 
That respectable writer has indeed admitted 
that this law is defective, because it does not 
provide for the duties to God and to inferiors; 
he has also proclaimed that it is bad, by stating 
that it allows of fornication, adultery, drunk- 
enness, prodigality, duelling, &c. Still, 
however, he has rather left us to infer that 
it ought wholly to be rejected, than abso- 
lutely told us so. By classing it with the 



S5 



law of the land and the Scriptures, he has 
(undesignedly no doubt) prevented its utter 
condemnation, and afforded ground for con- 
sidering it as n moral rule to which men owe 
a qualified obedience. 

Having specified the sort of practices which 
the Laxv of Honour allows, I shall take some 
brief notice of the duties which it exacts. 
The principal of these, and that upon which 
its tone and spirit are most peremptorj^, is the 
resentment of injuries. Now it must be ob- 
served, that the term injury^ in the use oiF 
people of Fashion, is of a very wide and com- 
prehensive signification. It not only means 
such an act of outrage as amounts to a mani- 
fest and palpable wrong, but extends to every 
dubious point of conduct from which a 
Fashionable sophist could find scope to infer 
an injurious intention. Thus a sister seduced 
and then abandoned, and a word or a look 
not satisfactorily explained, are all equally in- 
juries ; and constitute, in the spirit of this 
code, so many obligations to the most lively 

D 



^6 



and implacable resentment. It may be that 
the offended person is of a placable disposition, 
and would rather endure a moderate injury 
than seek revenge ; or he may have too much 
respect for the laws of the parent state to wish 
to. seek redress in any other than the legal 
way ; or he may know that the offending 
party is a man disposed to seek a quarrel, and 
that he desires nothing so much as to provoke 
the innocent person whom he has purposely 
insulted, to claim satisfaction; or lastly, it 
may be that the supposed injury is founded 
wholly on mistake, and that the reputed ag- 
gressor will not believe nor own himself to 
have offended, and will therefore make no 
atonement* In all these cases personal re- 
sentment might as well be waved ; but this 
the law of honour positively forbids : and he 
who should conscientiously decline to pursue 
a personal quarrel upon these or even higher 
motives, might be a better father, a better 
husband, a better subject, and a better Chris- 
tian, for so doing, but he would certainly be a 
worse man of honour. 



27 



It is worthy of remark, that these reputed 
injuries are sometimes so minute and transi- 
tory, or so distant and obscure, that if every 
thing depended upon the aggressor and the 
aggrieved, they would either be wholly undis- 
covered or speedily forgotten^ But each of 
these consequences is not unfrequently de- 
feated by the officious industry of some kind- 
hearted being, who loves his friend too well to 
let him be insulted, and who can govern his 
feelings well enough to stand by and see him 
murdered. This is, certainly, a refinement 
upon friendship, which may be fairly set down 
among the most, extraordinary achievements 
of the Lcav of Honour, Indeed, this bloody 
code allows of no exceptions j and hence we 
see reputed friends sacrifice to resentment 
with as little reserve as the bitterest enemies ; 
and that, perhaps, to settle a coffee-house dis- 
pute, or to avenge a theatrical quarrel ! 

Having said so much of the principal duty 
enjoined by the law of honour, I shall offer 
a few observations upon the sort of punish- 



28 



ment which it inflicts. I trust I shall be ex^ 
cused, if, in treating this part of my subject, 
I employ the term punishment in a sense not 
strictly similar to that in which it is ordir^arily 
used. The fact is, that this singular law 
makes the parties both judges in their own 
cause, and executioners of their own sentence. 
The universal award against every convicted 
offender is, that he shall fight a duel with the 
offended party. So that if that may be set 
down as punishment which is ultimate in a 
controversy, and which is exacted as a satis- 
faction of the law ; death, or exposure to it, is 
the lowest punishment which honour inflicts 
upon the least offender, and the highest which 
it enforces upon the greatest. 

And this is, I confess, a political incon- 
gruity which I have not a little difficulty in 
reconciling with the good sense of many who 
have undertaken to defend it. The law of 
England has often been blamed (and I think 
with justice) as unreasonably sanguinary. In 
answer to this it has been said, that though 



29 



nearly two hundred offences of almost as many 
-degrees of guilt are made equally punishable 
with death, yet justice is administered with so 
much discretion and mercy, that the penalty 
is inflicted only on a few. Feeble as this ex- 
cuse is for a law which deals in blood, it 
would be well for the law of honour if it ad- 
mitted of such a palliation. But the truth is, 
that in this latter case there is nothing to abate 
the demand for blood — ^there is no legal arbi- 
tration of the difference, no court to inquire 
into the true grounds of the quarrel, and to 
balance the merits of the controversy ; if the 
judgment be false, there is no equity to reverse 
the verdict ; if rigorous, there is no mercy to 
withdraw the victim from suffering. 

It must be evident from this view which 
has been presented of the law, that as an in- 
jury may be created by the most trivial occur- 
rence, so punishment may be inflicted with 
the. most preposterous and unequal retribution. 
I cannot better illustrate the frivolous founda- 
lion upon which an injury may be erected 
D2 



30 

than by adverting to an occurrence of very 
recent date, and of sufficient notoriety in the 
Fashionable World. Two men of Fashion, 
incensed against each other by an accidental 
rencontre between their respective dogs, drop- 
ped in their warmth certain expressions, which 
rendered them amenable to the bloody code. 
Duel was declared indispensable ; and in less 
than twelve hours, one of the two was dis- 
patched into eternity ; and the other narrowly 
escaped the same fate *. 

The inequality of the retribution is, indeed, 
an inevitable consequence of that article of the 

* For an account of this transaction, see the trial of 
Captain Macnamara for the murder of Colonel Montgo- 
mery ; in which it will appear, that though the Captain 
admitted the fact, yet the jury acquitted him of the crime. 
Such complaisance on the part of juries is particularly fa- 
vourable to this summary mode of terminating differences. 
Fatal duels are now become almost as common as highway- 
robberies j and make almost as little impression upon the 
public mind. The murdered is carried to his grave, and 
the murderer received back into society with the same ho- 
nour, as if the one had done his duty in sacrificing his 
life, and the other had only 4one his in taking it away. 



31 



code which compels men of Fashion, with- 
out distinction, to decide their differences by 
fighting a duel. It results from this promis- 
cuous injunction, that the peaceable man 
must fight the quarrelsome j that the heir of 
a noble family must meet the ruined esquire ; 
and that the mari who has never drawn a trig- 
ger in his life must encounter the Fashionable 
ruffian who has all his life been doing little 
else. This inequality is further manifest, 
from the different circumstances and connex- 
ions of life under which the combatants may 
be found. The son of many hopes may be 
matched against the worthless prodigal ; the 
virtuous parent against the unprincipled seduc- 
er ; and the man of industry, usefulness, and 
beneficence, against the miscreant who only 
lives to pamper his lusts and to corrupt his fel- 
low-creatures. Nothing has here been said of 
the indiscriminate manner in which judgment 
is executed. The innocent and the guilty 
must both be involved in the same awful con- 
tingency ; each must put his life to hazard ; 
and the probability is, that, if one of the two 



32 



should fall, it will be the man whose conduct 
least entitled him to punishment, and whose 
life was most worth preserving. 

1 forbear to enter further into the system of 
Fashionable government, or to meddle with 
the inferior points of legislation. What has 
been said of the Law of Honour will apply, 
with little variation, to every other institution 
of minor concern. To facilitate polite inter- 
course, and to exclude, as much as may be, 
duties to God and inferiors, is a considerable 
object in every regulation ; and it is but jus- 
tice to this people to say, that, in this respect, 
they are at once consistent and successful. 



S3 



CHAP. III. 

RELIGION AND MORALITY. 

In attempting to give an account of the I^eH' 
gion of the people of Fashion, I feel myself 
not a little embarrassed. It were, indeed, very 
much to be wished that one of their own num- 
ber would, in the name of the rest, draw up a 
confession of their faith. This is, perhaps, 
expecting too much ; and yet I cannot but 
think that it would be a very good employ- 
ment for some of those pliable priests, who 
pa-TL so much of their time in the circles of 
Fashion. They give every proof that they have 
leisure for the undertaking j and the access 
which they have to these people, by attending 
them so familiarly at their theatres, their 
operas, and their routs, must render them 
perfectly masters of the subject. However, as 
I am not aware that any thing of this nature is 
yet taken in hand, I shall lay before my reader 



S4 



such observations as I have been able to make ; 
partly because it seems necessary to the per- 
fection of my work that something should be 
said on the subject; and partly because I 
should be unwilling to afford by my silence 
any ground for suspicion — that there is no re- 
ligion in the Fashionable World. 

I am then, in the first place, decidedly 
of opinion, that people of Fashion are not 
Atheists ; though I am sufficiently aware, that 
some strict religionists have entertained an 
opposite^ conviction. It has been contended by 
the latter in support of their hypothesis, that 
people who believed in a God would have 
some scruple about taking such liberties with 
his name, and his attributes, and his threat- 
enings, and generally with all his moral prero- 
gatives, as people of Fashion are accustomed 
to do. There is certainly something plausible 
in this sort of reasoning, and I must candidly 
confess that I have never yet seen it fairly 
overthrown ; but then I cannot think that it 
proves their disbelief of a God, though it cei>. 



B5 



tainly does prove their want of reverence for 
him. It seems to me, at the same time, pro* 
bable, that the ideas of this people, and those 
of stricter Christians, upon the subject of that 
reverence vi^hich is due to the Deity, may 
differ sufficiently, to account for these offen- 
sive liberties, without having recourse to the 
'hypothesis of Atheism. Indeed, when I con- 
sider the spirit and construction of that law 
by which these people are bound, I can find 
other reasons for their conduct in this respect, 
besides that which these theorists have assign*- 
ed. For, to say the truth, those obnoxious 
expressions from which so much has been in- 
ferred, are in perfect unison with the exclu- 
sion of a Deity from the rules which regulate 
their intercourse with each other. The more 
therefore I reflect on this subject, the more I 
am confirmed in my opinion, that the charge 
of Atheism against them is without any just 
foundation ; and that their appeals to God in 
levity, earnestness, and anger, are designed to 
show their contempt of his authority, and not 
their denial of his being. 



36 



I was for a long time of opinion that these 
people^ were believers in Christ; for I had 
observed that his name was found in their 
formularies of devotion, associated with their 
baptismal designation, and frequenti37 appealed 
to in their conversation with each other. 
There Vv-ere, I confess, many things at the 
time which staggered me. Having taken up 
my ideas of the Saviour from those Scrip- 
tures which they profess to receive as well as 
myself, I was not a little astonished at the ul- 
timate diiference between us. Their belief of 
a God was, I knew, inevitable, and forced up- 
on them by every thing in nature and experi- 
ence ; I could therefore conceive, without 
much difficulty, how they could subscribe to 
his being, and yet not hallow his name ; but I 
could not with equal facility conceive, that 
people should go out of their way to embrace 
a solemn article of revealed religion, only that 
they might have an opportunity of trifling with 
the holy name of Him, who was the author 
and the object of that revelatian. 



37 

I had, besides, occasion to remark, that this 
name was seldom appealed to, but by the ladies; 
and it did not appear in the first instance pro- 
bable, that the gentlemen would leave them in 
exclusive possession of a mode of imprecation, 
by which any thing was meant. These, and 
other circumstances, excited in my mind a 
great deal of speculation. I will not, how- 
ever, trouble my readers with the many con- 
clusions which I drew from them ; since an 
event has occurred which affords no indifferent 
evidence, that belief in a Saviour does not form 
an article of Fashionable religion. The event 
to which I refer, is the publication of a Me- 
moir of the late Lord Camelford. In this 
Memoir the author professes to acquaint the 
world with the last moments of a Fashionable 
young man, who had received a mortal wound 
in an affair of honour. In perusing this ex- 
traordinary narrative, I was much surprised 
at finding, that neither the dying penitent, (for 
such he is represented to have been) nor his 
spiritual confessor, ever once mentioned the 
name of ChrisU But when, on further at- 



38 

tention, I found his Lordship expressing a hope 
that his own dying sufferings would expiate 
his feins ; and placing his dependence upon the 
mercy of his Creator ^ ; I had only to conclude 
that the divine was deterred from mentioning 
a name with which his office must have made 
him familiar, out of respect for that Fashion- 
able creed from which it is excluded. 

There is some reason for supposing that 
these people believe in the immortality of the 
soul, the existence of an evil spirit, and a 
place of future torment. It must at the same 
time be acknowledged, that their ideas on each 
of these points are so loose and confused, that 
it is difficult to determine in what sense they 
apprehend them. 

* '* In the worst moments of his pain, he cried out that 
he sincerely hoped, the agonies he then endured might expiaie 
the sins he had committed.^' **#*<<! wish with all my 
soul (says the writer of the Memoir,) that the unthinking 
Totaries of dissipation and infidelity could all have been 
present at the death-bed of this poor man; could have 
heard his expressions of contrition for his past misconduct, 
and of reliance upon the mercy of his Creator." — Vide Memoir 
of the late Lord Camelford, by the Rev. W. Cockburne, Fel- 
low of St, John^s College, Cambridge. 



39 



In subscribing, for example, to the immor- 
tality of the soul, they give it a value to which 
the corruptible body can never pretend : the 
inference from this, in a fair train of reason- 
ing, would be, that the care of the former is 
of infinitely more importance than that of the 
latter. And yet this is manifestly not the in- 
ference they draw : for the experience of every 
week proves, that if they give three hours to 
the soul they think it too much ; while they 
will give six days and nights to the body, and 
think it too little. This is, I confess, a part of 
their character of which no satisfactory explana- 
tion has ever been given. 

I have no other evidence of their belief in 
an evil Spirit and a place of future torment, 
than the report of their Prayer-books and 
the tenor of their conversation. I must at 
the same time acknowledge, that the loose- 
ness and frequency with which they refer to 
Hell and the Devil on the most ordinary occa- 
sions, have excited my doubts whether they 
use these awful terms in the same religious 



40 



sense in which orthodox Christians are accus- 
tomed to employ them. These doubts have 
been greatly encouraged by that sceptical fa- 
cetiousness with which they apply the name 
of the evil spirit to their Fashionable amuse- 
ments, and make the place of torment a sub- 
je£t of scenic representation^. I will not say 
that these people do not believe what they thus 
caricature ; but I think it must be obvious that 
they cannot have any very exact notions of 
their scriptural import, while they continue to 
employ them as terms of merriment and 
sources of diversion. 

Religious worship, though not inculcated as 
absolutely necessary in the Fashionable World, 
is yet neither prohibited nor renounced. Cer- 
tain persons of considerable influence among 
them, and whose connexion with them arose 
out of the incidental circumstances of birth, 
or office, or elevation, have carried into the 
societies of Ifashion some principles which 

* Vide Don Juan, and the ballets at the Opera House 

on the vigils of the Sabbath, 



41 



operate as a check upon the natural libertinism 
of the community. I impute it to this, rather 
than to any sober consideration of duty, that 
religious worship, though it is not esteemed 
essential to a Fashionable character, is yet not 
regarded as any impeachment of it. My rea- 
son, in a word, for ascribing this to influence 
rather than principle is, that it is a contra- 
diction of ideas to suppose that persons can 
seriously mean to worship a God whom they 
habitually blaspheme, or to pray against a 
devil whom they are apcustomed to hold out 
as a bugbear or a joke. 

Their mode of worship is generally that 
which prevails in the country in which they 
live : they like the eclat of an establishment, 
and the convenience of taking things as they 
find them. There are, I am told, some mem- 
bers of Fashion among those who dissent 
from the established religion. These I shall 
leave to the care of their Pastors ; and proceed 
to animadvert upon the Fashionable adherents 
to the religion of the state. 
E 2 



42 



In their manner of observing the rites of pub- 
lic worship, nothing is so remarkable as the 
degree of refinement which they introduce into 
every part of it which is capable of being refined 
upon. Chapels are for the most part prefeiTed 
to churches ; and the reason, among others, for 
this preference appears to be, that the modem- 
ness of their structure, and their exemption 
from parochial control, render them better 
adapted to such elegant improvements as are 
requisite for Fashionable piety* Hence that 
variety of ingenious accommodations and fan- 
ciful ornaments, which gives to their favourite 
place of devotion the air of a drawing-room ; 
so that a stranger introduced to their religious 
assemblies might be excused for doubting, 
whether he v/as about to worship the Deity, or 
to pay a Fashionable visit. The conduct of 
their service is in many cases marked by an 
attention to mechanical effect, w4iich is more 
nearly allied to the parade of the theatre, than 
to the simplicity of the church. The orators 
who fill their pulpits are generally preferred in 



43 



proportion as they display the captivating at- 
tractions of a graceful utterance and a liberal 
theology. These preachers have, indeed, a 
task to execute of no ordinary difficulty. By 
the tyranny of custom they are compelled to 
take their text, and to produce their authori- 
ties, from the canon of Scripture; and I think 
it is much to the praise of their dexterity, 
that, so often as they have occasion to dis- 
course from those offensive writings, they yet 
contrive to give so little offence. How they 
manage this, I am at a loss to know ; unless 
it be by blinking every question that in- 
volves a moral application ; or else by allow- 
ing their audience the benefit of that Fashion- 
able salvo, that the company present is always 
excepted. 

It has also been remarked by scrupulous 
observers, that they perform almost the whole 
of their public devotions in a posture which 
rather accommodates their indolence than ex- 
presses their respect for the object of their 
worship. If this be the fact, it is not a littk 



44 

extraordinary ; since they use a liturgy which 
prescribes kneeling^ and standmg as well as 
sitting; and which contains distinct instruc- 
tions when each is to be used. I can indeed 
account without much difficulty, for the dis- 
use of kneeling ; because the structure of the 
pews does not always admit of it : besides that, 
it is a posture into which people cannot be ex- 
pected readily to fall, who have not much prac- 
tice in private. But I cannot so easily account 
for their refusing to stand: for this is notori- 
ously an attitude to which they are sufficiently 
accustomed. And that they do not consider 
the posture in which a thing is done indifferent, 
is manifest from the zeal with which they rise 
from their seats and expect others to do the 
same, when about to join in a loyal chorus. 
I wonder it has not occurred to them, that 
there is some indecency, not to say impiety, 
in rising from their seats to sing the praises of 
their King j and keeping them while they sing 
the praises of their God. 



45 



I have before delivered it as my opinion, 
that this people comply with the custom of 
public worship, rather from influence than 
from conviction ; and this opinion receives 
some confirmation from the pains which they 
take to remove those impressions which the 
offices of religion may have made upon their 
minds. In the metropolis, the visit to the 
house of God is succeeded, as soon as maybe, 
by the drive into the Park. Here they meet 
with a prodigious concourse of persons of 
their own description, and have the most 
charming opportunities of seeing the world, 
exhibiting themselves, and of conversing upon 
the opera of the preceding evening, or the 
parties for the ensuing week. The effect of 
this drive upon their animal spirits, and the 
whole frame of their mmd, is just what might 
have been expected. Though they have so 
recently assisted at the most awful solemnities, 
they can now relax into the most boisterous 
mirth; and satisfying themselves that they 
have done their duty by remembering the 
Almighty in the first part of the day, they 



AG 

take no common pains to forget him during 
the remainder. 



In the vicinity of the metropol^, and in 
other places of Fashionable residence, other 
expedients are resorted to, in order to produce 
the " same happy effect. No sooner has the 
priest pronounced his Morning benediction, 
than the carriage which has conveyed the 
family to church must be driven round the 
neighbourhood ; and the bells and knockers of 
twenty doors announce that the restraints of 
public worship are at an end. This pleasant 
divertisement is not lost upon the great body 
of the inhabitants. Persons the farthest re- 
moved from all Fashionable pretensions rejoice 
with their superiors at this speedy termination 
of the Sabbath ; . and, with a servile imitation 
oi their example, pursue their pleasures in some 
house of entertainment, instead of seeking a 
second blessing in the house of God ^. 

* The Bishop of Durham animadverts (with just severity) 
upon ** the great neglect of church in the Sunday afternoons, 
ivhen the duties of religion are deserted for the fashions or fr ieft^- 
ship of the ivorld." Vide Charge for 1801. 



47 



Though there is something very lively and 
ingenious in this method of dissipating reli- 
gious impressions, yet I think it might be ^n 
improvement upon the plan, not to allow them 
to be made at all. Experiments to this effect 
have been actually tried by many persons of 
no mean condition in the Fashionable World, 
who have wholly renounced the habit of pub- 
lic worship ; and these experiments would pro- 
bably have been tried upon a much larger 
scale, had it not been for the consideration of 
setting a pernicious example : for it seems to 
be a maxinv among many of them, that per- 
sons in a dependent state may really be bene- 
fitted by the offices of devotion. With a 
charity, therefore, that does them honour, 
they make a sacrifice of their feelings and 
their time to the interests of their inferiors ; 
and when it is considered how much whirling 
in a carriage, gaping, gadding, and gossiping, 
it takes them to recover the true tone of dissi- 
pation, it will be seen that the sacrifice is not 
inconsiderable. 



48 



In observing thus largely upon the religion 
of the Fashionable World, I have furnished a 
sufficient clue to their moral character: if, 
from some hints which have been thrown out 
in this and the preceding chapter, rigid Chris- 
tians should be led to infer that it is no better 
than it should be, they must be reminded that 
people of Fashion have a standard peculiar to 
themselves ; and that therefore what are devi- 
ations from our standard, are very often near 
approximations to theirs. In fact, they have 
acted in this respect with the same convenient 
policy by which they have been guided in 
framing every other part of their system. 
Pleasure being the object upon which a life of 
Fashion terminates, it was sagaciously enough 
foreseen, that an unbending morality would be 
utterly incompatible with the modes, and ha- 
bits, and plans of such a career. There re- 
mained, therefore, no alternative but that of 
frittering away the strength and substance of 
the morality of the Gospel, till it became suf- 
ficiently tame and pliable for the sphere of ac- 
commodation in which it was to act. The 



49 

consequence has been, that while they empl(^^ 
the same terms to denote their moral ideas, as 
are in use among Christians in general, yet 
they limit or enlarge their signification as ex- 
pediency requires. Thus modesty, honesty, 
humanity, and sobriety— names, with stricter 
moralists, for the purest virtues— are so mo- 
dified and liberalized by Fashionable casuists, 
as to be capable of an alliance with a low de- 
gree of every vice to whiclithey stand oppored. 
A woman may expose her bosom, paint her 
face, assume a forward air, gaze without emo- 
tion, and laugh without restraint at the loosest 
scenes of theatrical licentiousness, and yet be 
after all — a modest woman. • A man may de- 
tain the money which he owes his tradesman, 
and contract new debts for ostentatious super- 
fluities, while he has neither the means nor the 
inclination to pay his old ones, and yet be after 
all< — a YQTy honest fellow. A woman of Fashion 
may disturb the repose of her family every 
night, abandon her children to mercenary 
nurses, and keep her horses and her servants 
in the streets till daybreak, without any im- 

F 



50 



peachmcnt of her humanity. So the gentle- 
man of Fashion may swallow his two or three 
bottles a-day, and do all his friends the kind- 
ness to lay them under the table as often as 
they dine with him ; yet if constitution or 
habit secure him against the same ignomi- 
nious effects, he claims to be considered — a 
sober man. 

There would be no end of going over all 
the eccentricities of Fashionable morality. To 
those who exact that truth which allows of no 
duplicity, that honour which scorns all base- 
ness, and that virtue which wars with every 
vice, I question but every thing in the morals 
of this people would appear anomalous and ex- 
traordinary : but to, those who consider how 
necess-ary a certain portion of wickedness is to 
such a life of sense as these people must ne- 
cessarily lead, it will not be matter of surprise 
that there should be so little genuine morality 
among them : the wonder will rather be— that 
there should be any at all. 



51 



CHAP. IV, 



EDUCATION. 



JN o people in the universe expend larger sums 
upon the education of their children than 
people of Fashion. It is a maxim with them 
to commence the great business of instruction 
in the very earliest period of life ; and if the 
system of education corresponded with the 
pains bestowed upon it, and the price at 
which it is purchased, no persons would do 
more honour to society than the subjects of 
the Fashionable World. As it is, they are 
not a little ornamental to a nation. They 
are not, it is true, either the columns or the 
base of the building; they neither support 
nor strengthen it : but they supply the place 
of reliefs, and hangings, and other superadded 
decorations. 



5-2 



Religion is allowed a respectable place 
among the studies of the nursery. All those 
useful tables of instruction are assiduously em- 
ployed, which teach who was the Jirst, the 
rvisest, the meekest, and the strongest man: 
and the nursling is carefully conducted, by a 
catechetical process, into the theory and prac- 
tice of a Christian. As, however, the child ad- 
vances to boyish or girlish years, this religious 
discipline is pretty generally relaxed, in order 
to allow sufficient scope for the cultivation of 
those modish pursuits, which mark the man 
and the woman of Fashion. 

And here I cannot help remarking how 
anxious the greater part of Fashionable parents 
are to guard the minds of their children against 
the permanent influence of that religion which 
they yet have caused them to be taught. The 
fact is, that they would have them acquainted 
with the technical language, and expert in the 
liturgical formalities of Christianity ; for these 
acquirements can neither disparage their cha- 
racter nor impede their pleasures : but a se- 



53 



rious impression of its truths upon their hearts 
might disafFect them to the follies and vices 
which they are destined to practise ; and 
therefore is the thing of ail others that is most 
to be dreaded. The parents are, to say the 
truth, not a little hampered by the engage- 
ments under which they have bound the child 
on the one part, and the character which they 
wish him to sustain on the other. To leave 
him in ignorance of a covenant in which he 
has been involuntarily included, would be a 
fraud upon his conscience j and yet to have 
him renounce the devil, the world, and the 
flesh, would be the utter ruin of his Fashion- 
able reputation. What other course then can 
parents thus circumstanced pursue, than that 
of inculcating these lessons before they can be 
understood, and removing their impression 
before they can be practised ? 

It is, I presume, upon the principle of pre- 
caution already mentioned, that our Fashion- 
able young men are not always intrusted to the 
care of persons distinguished for the practice of 
r 2 



54 



piety. It is not impossible indeed, that, either 
from the conversation, the connexions, or the 
example of the preceptor, the pupil may con- 
tract certain habits which it was not the precise 
object of his education to produce. But then 
the evil is not so great as fastidious moralists 
would insinuate. For, as the youth is to figure 
in the circles of Fashion, he will only have 
learnt, a little before the time, those practices 
which are to form a part of his manly cha- 
racter: and though it might perhaps be as well 
if he did not learn to swear and rake quite so 
soon ; yet it is some consolation that Ke 
has escaped those methodistical impressions, 
which would hav^e prevented him from swear- 
ing and raking as long as he lived. 

It may also be considered as some confirma- 
tion of the reasoning above employed, that pa- 
rents introduce their children as early as pos- 
sible to the amusements of the theatre. Now, 
though swearing, and raking, and gaming, 
when carried to excess, are blamed even by 
persons of Fashion themselves ; yet it is no- 



55 



torious, that a reasonable proportion of each 
is indispensably requisite to a popular cha- 
racter in the circles of refinenaent. Habits of 
this sort must not be precipitately taken up. 
There must be a schooling for the man of 
pleasure as well as for the man of letters : and 
certainly no school exists in which the ele- 
ments of modish vice can be studied with 
greater promise of proficiency, than the pub- 
lic theatres. When it is considered at what 
pains the managers of the stage are to import 
the seducing dramas of Germany, as well as 
to get up the loose productions of the English 
Muse : when it is further considered how 
studious the actors and actresses are to do 
justice, and even more than justice, to the 
luscious scenes of the piece ; to give effect to 
the equivoques by an arch emphasis, and to 
the oaths by a dauntless intonation : — when 
to all this is added, how many painted strum- 
pets are stuck about the theatre, in the boxes, 
the galleries, and the avenues ; and how many 
challenges to prostitution are thrown out in 
every direction : it will, I think, be difficult to 



56 



imagine places better adapted, than the the- 
atres at this moment are, to teach the theory 
and practice of Fashionable iniquity. 

What lias been observed on the subject of 
education, though said principally with refer- 
ence to the male branches of Fashionable fa- 
milies, will yet, with a few changes, be found 
applicable to the youth of the other sex. The 
principal points upon which their scheme of 
education is brought to bear, are those of dis- 
siJ)ation and display. A brilliant finger on 
the piano, wanton flexions in the dance, a 
rage for operas, plays, and parties, and the 
faculty of undergoing the fatiguing evolutions 
of a Fashionable life without compunction of 
conscience, sense of weariness, or indications 
of disgust, are qualifications which she who 
has acquired, will be considered as wanting 
little of a perfect education. 

The same assiduity is discovered on the 
part of the parents, to train their girls for the 
sphere of polite life, as has been already ob- 
served with respect to the boys j and the me- 



57 



thods that are pursued to accomplish this end, 
are very nearly the same. The blush of vir- 
gin modesty (it is naturally foreseen) would 
be extremely inconvenient, not to say abso- 
lutely indecorous, in a woman of Fashion ; 
and therefore it is wisely resolved, that such 
steps shall be taken, upon the girl's growing 
into life, as may most effectually destroy it. 
The theatre seems principally to be resorted 
to for this purpose ; and it must be manifest 
from what has been already advanced, that no 
expedient could have been better chosen. As 
intrigue is the life of the drama, and this can- 
not be carried on without expressions, atti- 
tudes, and communications between the sexes 
of a very particular nature, there is every rea- 
son for regarding the stage as a sovereign re- 
medy for the infirmity of blushing. 

There are other things to be said on behalf 
of the threatre as a school of polite morality. 

It has already appeared that the system of 
ethics which prevails among people of Fashion, 



58 



differs materially from the received system of 
unfashionable Christians. Now, I know not 
any means by which a stranger anxious to 
ascertain wherein that difference consists, 
could better satisfy his inquiries, than by visit- 
ing the theatres. The doctrine of the stage 
therefore exhibiting (as nearly as possible) the 
standard morality of polite society, nothing 
could be better imagined than to give the em- 
bryo woman of Fashion the earliest opportu- 
nity of learning to so much advantage, those 
lessons which she is afterwards to practise 
through life. What she has imbibed in the. 
nursery, and what she hears in the church, 
would inspire her with a dread — perhaps a 
dislikcr-^of many things upon which she must 
learn hereafter to look with familiar indiffer- 
ence, if not with absolute complacency. She 
might thus (if some remedy were not provided} 
be led to take up with certain melancholy 
principles, which would either shut her out 
from the society of her friends, or make her 
miserable among them. But the stage cor- 
rects all this ; and more than counterbalances 



^9 

the impressions of virtue by stratagems of the 
happiest contrivance. 

It is worthy of attention how much inge- 
nuity is displayed in bringing about that moral 
temperament which is necessary for the meri- 
dian of Fashion. The rake who is debauch- 
ing innocence, squandering away property, 
and extending the influence of hcentiousness 
to the utmost of his power, would (if fairly 
represented) excite spontaneous and universal 
abhorrence. But this would be extremely in- 
convenient; since raking, seduction, and pro- 
digality, make half the business, and almost 
all the reputation, of men of Fashion. What 
then must be done ? — Some qualities of ac- 
knowledged excellence must be associated with 
these vicious propensities, in order to prevent 
them from occasioning unmingled disgust. 
We may, I presume, refer it to the same 
policy, that in dramas of the greatest popu- 
larity the worthless libertine is represented 
as having at the bottom some of those pro- 
perties which reflect most honour upon human 



,60 



nature : while, — as if to throw the balance 
still more in favour of vice — the man of pro- 
fessed virtue is delineated as being in the main 
a sneaking and hypocritical villain. Lessons 
such as these are not likely to be lost upon the 
ingenuous feelings of a young girl. For, be- 
sides the fascinations of an elegant address 
and an artful manner, the whole conduct of 
the ^piot is an insidious appeal to the simpli- 
city of her heart. She is taught to believe by 
these representations, that profligacy is the 
exuberance of a generous nature, and decorum 
the veil of a bad heart : so that having learnt, 
in the outset of her career, to associate frank- 
ness with vice, and duplicity with virtue, she 
will not be likely to separate these combina- 
tions during the remainder of her life. 

To enter further into the minute details of 
a Fashionable education, v/ould only be to 
travel over ground which has been often and 
ingeniously explored by writers of t\iQ greatest 
eminence. Enough has been said to show, 
that the system of education adopted by this 



61 

people, like every other branch of then- eco- 
nomy, is adapted to qualify the parties for that 
polite intercourse with each other, which 
seems to constitute the very end of their being. 
And if it be considered of what nature that in- 
tercourse is, it will occasion no surprise, that 
the education which prepares for it should 
confound the distinctions of virtue and vice ; 
and inculcate duplicity in religion, and preva- 
rication in morals. 



6^ 
CHAP. V. 

MANNERS LANGUAGE. 

JL HE Manners of this people are remarkably 
artificial. They appear to do every thing by 
rule ; and not a word, a look, or a move- 
ment escapes them, but what has at one time 
or other been studied. In every part of their 
demeanour they have reference to some invi- 
sible standard, which they call the Ton or 
the Fashion, (from which latter term they 
have derived their appellation j) and by this 
mysterious talisman, their mahners, their 
dress, their language, and the whole of their 
behaviour, is tried. ' It is singular enough, 
that this standard which is to fix every thing, 
is itself the most variable of all things. The 
changes which it undergoes are so rapid, that 
it requires a sort of telegraphic communica- 
tion to become acquainted with them : and 
though there is no regular way by which they 



may be known, yet nothing is considered so 
disgraceful as not to know them. 

The fluctuations to which this standard is 
subject, render it difficult to catch the fea- 
tures of people of Fashion, or to speak with 
any precision upon the exterior of their cha- 
racter. They are, in fact, moulded and mo- 
dified by such capricious and indefinable cir- 
cumstances, that he who would exhibit a true 
picture of their manners, must write a history 
of the endless transmutations through which 
they are compelled to pass. It has indeed been 
remarked by nice observers, that a dissimula- 
tion of their sentiments and their feelings, 
is a feature in the character of this people 
which never forsakes them ; and that amidst 
all the revolutions which their other habits 
experience, this master-principle preserves an 
unchanging uniformity. Nor is it sufficient 
to overthrow this reasoning, that, among the 
innovations of recent times, the manners of 
people of Fashion have been brought into an 
affected resemblance to those of their inferiors. 



64 



The cropped head and groomish dress of the 
men, and the noisy tone and vulgar air of the 
women, would almost persuade a stranger 
that these are blunt and artless people, and 
that they love nothing more than honesty and 
plain-tdealing. The fact however is, that 
though the mode of playing is varied, yet the 
gamt of dissimulation is still going on. This 
condescension to vulgarity is, after all, the 
disguise of pride, and not the dress of simpli- 
city ; and is as remote from the sincerity 
which it imitates, as from the refinement 
which it renounces. 

An exaggerated opinion of their own im- 
portance is, in reality, a prevailing character- 
istic of the Fashionable World. 

The Greeks and Romans were thought to 
have gone too far, when they called all nations 
but their own, barbarians : but people of 
Fashion go a step farther ; for they consider 
themselves every body^ and the rest of the 
world nobody. The influence of this senti- 



65 



ment is sufficiently discernible over the whole 
of their character. It dictates to their affec- 
tions, and robs them in many instances of 
their spontaneity, their sweetness, and their 
force. It results from this, that their love is 
often artificial, their friendship ceremonious, 
and their charity ungracious. In a word, the 
whole of their demeanour is such as might be 
expected from a people, who idolize the most 
frivolous or the most vicious propensities of 
human nature; and estimate as nothing, the 
talents, and industry, and virtue, which adorn 
it. 

Their Language would afford great scope 
for discussion ; but the limits which I have 
prescribed to my work will not allow me to 
embrace it. I shall, however, throw together 
such remarks as may enable the reader to form 
some judgment of it j and refer him, for more 
extended information upon it, to those modish 
compositions in which it is conveyed, and to 
the circles in which it is spoken. 
G 2 



66 



Their language then, is generally a dialect 
of the people among whom they reside. They 
do, it is true, intersperse their conversational 
dialogue with scraps of French and Italian ; 
they also construct their complimentary 
phrases with singular dexterity ; they have be- 
sides, certain epithets, such as dashing^ stylish, 
Sec. which may be considered as perfectly their 
own : — ^but if these be excepted, the rest of 
their language is, to the best of my judgment, 
wholly vernacular. 

It must not, however, be supposed, that be- 
cause this people use the terms of the country 
in which they live, they therefore use them in 
their ordinary and received acceptation. No- 
thing can be farther from the fact. I verily be- 
lieve, that if the whole nomenclature of Fashion 
were examined from beginning to end, scarce- 
ly twenty words would be found, which, in pas* 
sing over to the regions of Fashion, have not 
left their native and customary sense behind 
them. 



67 



In support of this observation, I shall citCj 
for the reader's satisfaction, a brief extract 
from a private memorandum which I had ori- 
ginally made, with the design of constructing 
a Fashionable glossary. 

Vernacular 

Fashionable Sense. 

, . Ordering goods without pre- 
sent purpose of payment. 
Something to swear by. 
Fear of man. 
Fear of God. 

Debt A necessary evil. 

Enthusiasm . Religion in earnest. 

Every body's house but one's 
own. 

An imaginary Moloch claim- 
ing licentious rites and human 
victims. 
Expert in folly and vice. 

Life ..... Destruction of body and souL 

Modest .... Always used in a bad sense 
when applied to a man. 

Religion • . . Occupying a seat in some 
church or chapel. 



Terms, 
Buying . . 

Conscience 
Courage . 
Cowardice 



Home 



Honour 



Knowing 



68 



Vernacular 
Terms, Fashionable Sense. 

Spirit Contempt of decorum and 

conscience. 
Thing .... As applied to a man, every 

thing but what he should 

be. 
Wicked .... Irresistibly agreeable. 

This transmutation of terms is a very favour- 
ite operation with this people. It is, in fact, a* 
work which is daily going on j and keeps pace 
with the progress of their ideas, from the cor- 
rect and authentic notions of truth and virtue, 
to those loose and spurious ones by which 
they are superseded. 

In proof of this statement, I need only ad- 
duce those phrases in which they are accus- 
tomed to pronounce the eulogium of their de- 
ceased associates. 

For example — Is reference made to an un- 
thinking profligate who has lately been hurried 



69 



from the world. His vices are glanced at, 
and cursorily condemned ; but still it is affirm- 
ed, that he always meant well^ he had a good 
heart at the botto?n, and he was nobodifs enemy 
hut his own. 

And for whom is this apology offered, and 
this praise indirectly solicited ? For the man, 
who, if he ever meant any thing, meant no- 
thing more or better, than to gratify his lusts, 
pursue his vicious pleasures, drink his wine, 
shake his dice, shuffle his cards; and thus 
waste his existence, and destroy his soul. Of 
such a man it is gravely affirmed, that, — he 
always meant welL 

And of whom is it said, that he had a good 
heart? Of the man who rarely manifested, 
through the whole of his life, any other symp- 
toms than those which indicate a bad one. 
His mouth was full of cursing and bitterness ; 
his humour was choleric and revengeful ; his 
feet moved quick to shed blood ; there was no 
Gpnscience in his bospm, and no fear of Go4 



70 



before his eyes ; and yet, because he was oc- 
casionally charitable, and habitually convivial^ 
no doubt is entertained but that — he had a 
good heart at the bottom, 

- Lastly, he is said to have been nobody's 
enemy but his otvn^ who has wasted the earn- 
ings of an industrious ancestor, and bequeath- 
ed beggary and shame to his innocent descend- 
ants. The wretch has distressed his family b}^ 
his prodigality, and corrupted thousands by 
his example ; and yet because he has been the 
dupe of his lusts, and fallen a martyr to his 
vices, he is pronounced to have been- — nobodifs 
enemy but his own. 

These instances will serve to throw some 
light upon the sort of idiom employed by peo- 
ple of Fashion, and the manner in which they 
have wrested expressions of no little import- 
ance from their natural and legitimate sense. 

But before I quit the consideration of their 
language^ I think it my duty to point out 



71 



another peculiarity, of which, to the best of 
my knowledge, no satisfactory account has 
yet been given. Whether it arise from the 
paucity of their words, the confusion of their 
ideas, or from any other cause distinct from 
each of these, so it is, that they have but one 
term, by which they are accustomed to express 
their strong emotions both of pleasure and 
pain. On this term you will find them ringing 
^perpetual changes j and, strange to say, it is to 
be heard, under one or other of its gramma- 
tical inflexions*, in almost every sentence 
which falls from their lips. The master has 
recourse to it in scolding his servants, the 
officer in reprimanding his men. The tra- 
veller employs it in recounting his adventures, 
and the man of pleasure in describing his in- 
trigues. It is heard in the house, and in the 



* If the reader should have a difficulty in discovering 
the full import of this remark, he is requested to consider 
that the peculiar term appropriated to swearing is capable 
of becoming either a verb, a substantive, a participle ad- 
jective, or an adverb : and he will find that it is used 
under all these forms by people of Fashion. 



n 



field ; in moments of seriousness, and of le-* 
vity; in expressions of praise, and of blame. 
In short, it is used on occasions the most dis- 
similar, under impressions the most contra- 
dictory, and for purposes the most opposite ; 
and is, in fact, the sine qua non of every 
energetic and ^emphatical period. 

Now it happens unfortunately that this ca- 
thoUcon in Fashionable phraseology is, of air 
other terms, that to which sober Christians 
annex the most awful ideas j and from the use 
of which they as scrupulously abstain, as they 
do from that of the Great Being whose ven- 
geance it so tremendously expresses. And it 
may be worthy of consideration, whether this 
familiar and unfeeling employment by people 
of Fashion of a term which imports infernal 
punishment y does not strengthen those doubts 
which have been already suggested, of their 
real belief in a place of future torment. 

• It ought not at the same time to be over- 
looked, that, in this respect, they bear a close 



73 



resemblance to the vulgarest part of the com- 
munity ; and it would furnish a subject of cu- 
rious investigation why two classes in society, 
respectively the highest and the lowest, should 
exhibit so striking an agreement in a material 
branch of language. I know it has been said 
that extremes meet ; and the fact before us is 
so much proof that the remark is just : but 
that by no means solves the difficulty. For, 
after all, the question returns upon us, wky 
such a fact should exist ? I confess, for my 
own part, I know no answer that can be given 
to it ; and I very much wish that some one 
of their number would undertake to explain 
their real motives for courting a resemblance 
in one respect with that description of society, 
from which they make it their pride to differ 
in every other* 



74 



CHAP. VI. 



DRESS AMUSEMENTS. 



JL HERE are in the Dress of this people many- 
singularities, upon which he who wished to 
say every thing that could be said, might say a 
great deal. The peculiarity which a stranger 
would be most apt to remark, is that of their 
striving to be as unlike as possible to the rest 
of the world. This appears, indeed, to be th6 
parent of almost every other peculiarity ; and 
certainly gives birth to many changes not a 
little ridiculous and prejudicial. 

It being a sort of fundamental maxim with 
them that superiority consists in dissimili- 
tude, they become engaged in a perpetual 
competition with the world at large, and to a 
certain degree with each other. In order to 
maintain this struggle for pre-eminence, they 
are compelled to vary the modes and mate- 



75 



rials of their dress in all the ways which a 
fanciful imagination can suggest. It happens, 
through some strange infatuation, that those 
who affect to despise the man or woman of 
Fashion, yet ape their dress and air with the 
most impertinent and vexatious perseverance. 
What is to be done in this case ? Similitude 
is not to be endured. In order therefore to 
throw out their pursuers, these monopolizers 
of the mode are compelled to run into such 
eccentricities as nothing could justify or pal- 
liate but the distress to which they are re- 
duced. If, for example, short skirts and 
low capes are copied by the herd of imitators, 
the Fashionables seek their remedy ,^in the 
opposite extreme : their skirts are drawn down 
to the calves of their legs, and their capes 
pulled over their ears with as much solemnity 
and dispatch, as if their existence depended 
upon the measure. So if full petticoats and 
high kerchiefs are adopted by the misses of the 
crowd, the dressing-chambers of Fashion are 
all bustle and confusion : — ^the limbs are strip- 
ped, and the bosom laid bare, though the east 



76 



wind may be blowing at the time ; and coughs, 
rheumatisms, and consumptions, be upon the 



wings of every blast. 



This rage for dissimilitude in the affairs of 
the wardrobe, is allov/ed an indefinite scope. 
Unfortunately, as far as I can learn, there are 
no determinate points, beyond which it would 
be esteemed indecent or imprudent to indulge 
it. The consequence is, that the groom and 
the gentkfnan may be often mistaken for each 
other ; and he who is recognized to-day as a 
7nan of Fashion, may to-morrow be confounded 
with one of the people, 

I confess I have always regarded this part 
of their conduct as an impeachment of their 
political wisdom. I should have thought, h 
priori, that a people who are so jealous of their 
pre-eminence in society, would not have over- 
looked the degree in which dress contributes 
to uphold it. Many a Fashionable man must 
depend for the whole of his estimation, upon 
the cut of his coat, and the selection of his 



77 



wardrobe. A frivolous or preposterous taste 
may therefore prove fatal to the only sort of re- 
putation which it was in his power to obtain. 
But besides, an interchange of dress between 
people of Fashion and those whom they con- 
sider their inferiors, may eventually produce 
very serious mischiefs. The distinctions of 
rank and condition are manifestly matters of 
external regulation, and consequently cannot 
be kept up without a due attention to external 
appearances. He therefore who makes him- 
self vulgar or ridiculous, is guilty of an act of 
self-degradation ; and the fault will be his own, 
if he is displaced or despised ; since he has 
renounced that appropriate costume, which pro- 
claimed at once his station in society, and his 
determination to maintain it* 

The fair sex appear also on their part to set 
all limits and restraints at defiance. They seem 
to feel themselves at perfect liberty to follow 
the prevailing mode, whatever that mode may 
be. The consequence is, that modesty is often 
the last thing considered by the young, and 
H % 



78 

propriety as completely neglected by the old. 
And this latter circumstance may serve to ac- 
count in some measure for the little respect 
which is said to be paid to age in the Fashion- 
able World. To judge from the histories of all 
nations, it seems impossible that length of 
years, if accompanied with those characteristics 
which denote and become it, should not excite 
spontaneous veneration. But if the shrivelled 
arm must be bound in ribbands and bracelets, 
if the withered limbs must be wrapped in mus- 
lins and gauzes, and the wrinkled face be de- 
corated with ringlets and furbelows, the silly 
veteran waves the privilege of her years ; and 
since she disgusts the grave, without charming 
the gay, she must not be surprised if she 
jneets with respect from neither. 

A fondness for amusements is one of the 
strongest characteristics of this people. They 
may almost be said to live for little else. They 
pass the whole of that short day which they 
allow themselves, in making arrangements for 
spending the ensuing night. Indeed, their 



'9 



preference of night to day is such, that they 
seem to consider the latter as having no other 
value than as it leads to the former, and affords 
an opportunity of preparing for its enjoyment. 
And hence I suppose it is, that such multitudes 
among them dine by candle-light, and go to bed 
by day-light. 

This passion for diversions renders the 
Sunday particularly irksome to persons of any 
sort of ton in the Fashionable World. A dose 
of piety in the morning is well enough, though 
it is somewhat inconvenient to take it quite 
so early; but then it wants an opera, or a 
play, or a dance, to carry it off. There are 
indeed, some esprit-forts among the ladies, 
who are trying with no little success to redeem 
a portion of the sabbath from the insufferable 
bondage of the Bible and the sermon-book ; 
and to naturalize that continental distribution 
of the day, which gives the morning to devo- 
tion, and the evening to dissipation. It is 
but justice to the gentlemen to say, that they 
discover no backwardness in supporting amea- 



80 



sure so consonant to all their wishes. It is 
therefore not impossible that some considera- 
ble changes in this respect may soon be brought 
about. That good-humoured legislature which 
has allowed a Sunday newspaper, will per- 
haps not always refuse a Sunday opera or 
play. People of Fashion will then no longer 
have to torture their invention for expedients 
to supply the absence of their diurnal diver- 
sions. They may then let their tradesmen go 
quietly to their parish-churches, instead of 
sending for them to wear away the sabbath 
hours in some supervacaneous employment. 
In short, Sunday may be set at liberty from 
its primitive bondage, and exhibit as happy 
an union of morning solemnity and evening 
licentiousness as it has ever displayed among 
the dissolute adherents of Fashionable Chris- 
tianity. 

But to return — The rage ^ for amusements 
is so strong in this people, that it seems to 

* A distinguished Prelate, who gained the ear of the 
Fashionable World to a degree beyond all former example, 
has adverted to this " rage for amusement" with such 



SI 



supersede all exercise of judgment in the choice 
and the conduct of them. To go every where, 
see every thing, and know every body, are, in 
their estimation, objects of such importance, 
that, in order to accomplish them, they put 
themselves to the greatest inconveniences, and 

apostolical earnestness at the close of a lecture delivered to 
perhaps the greatest number of Fashionable people that 
ever assembled for a similar purpose within the walls of a 
church, that I shall avail myself of the passage, as well to 
confirm my statement as t© embellish my pages. 

** When I consider that the time of the year is now ap- 
proaching in which the gaieties and amusements of this 
vast- metropolis are generally engaged in with incredible 
alacrity and ardor, and multitudes are pouring in from every 
part of the kingdom to take their share in them ; and when 
I recollect further that at this very period in the last year a 
degree of extravagance and wildness of pleasure took place, 
which gave pain to every serious mind, and was almost 
unexampled in any former times, I am not, I confess, 
without some apprehensions that the same scenes of levity 
and dissipation may again recur ^ and that some of those 
who now hear me (of the youngest part more especially) 
may be drawn too far into this Fashionable vortex, and lose 
in that giddy tumult of diversion all I'emembrance of what 
has passed in this sacred place." 

£p, Porteus on Si> Mattheiv, vol, ii. Lect. 18,/), 161, 



82 



commit the very grossest absurdities. Hence 
they will rush in crowds to shine where they 
cannot be seen, to dance where they cannot 
move, and to converse with friends whom 
they cannot approach ; and what is more, 
though they cannot breathe for the pressure, 
and can scarcely live for the heat, yet they call 
this — enjoyment. 

Nor does this passion suffer any material 
abatement by the progress of time. Many ve- 
terans visit, to the last, the haunts of polite 
dissipation; they lend their countenance to 
those dramas of vanity in which they can no 
longer act a part ; and show their incurable at- 
tachment to the pleasures of this world, by 
their unwillingness to decline them. The in- 
firmities which attend upon the close of life 
are certainly designed to produce other habits ; 
and it should seem that when every thing 
announces an approaching dissolution, the 
amusements of the drawing-room might give 
place to the employments of the closet. Per- 
sons, however, of this description are of an« 



83 



other mind; and as every difficulty on the 
score of teeth, hoariness, and wrinkles, can be 
removed by the happy expedients of ivory, 
hair-caps, and cosmetics, there is certainly no 
physical objection to their continuing among 
their Fashionable acquaintance, till they are 
wanted in another world. 

I cannot illustrate this part of my subject 
better than by presenting my readers with the 
following Ode on the Spring, written by a 
man of Fashion j it expresses, with so much 
exactness, the sentiments and taste of that 
extraordinary people, that it will stand in the 
place of a thousand observations upon their 
character. 



84 
ODE ON THE SPRING. 

BY A MAN OF FASHION. 

LO ! where the party-giving dames, 

Fair Fashion's train appear ; 
Disclose the long-expected games, 

And wake the modish year : 
The opera-warbler pours her throat, 
Responsive to the actor's note, 

The dear-bought harmony of Spring; 
While, beaming pleasure as they fly. 
Bright flambeaus through the murky sky 

Their welcome fragrance fling. 
II. 
Where'er the rout's full myriads close 

The staircase and the door. 
Where'er thick files of belles and beaus 

Perspire through ev'ry pore : 
Beside some faro-table's brink, 
With me the Muse shall stand ar>d think, 

(Hemm'd sweetly in by squeeze of state,) 
How vast the comfort of the crowd, 
How condescending are the proud, 

How happy are the great ! 



85 
III. 

Still is the toiling hand of Care, 

The drays and hacks repose ; 
But, hark, how through the vacant air 

The rattling clamour glows 1 
The wanton Miss and rakish Blade, 
Eager to join the masquerade, 
Through streets and squares pursue their fun; 
Home in the dusk some bashful skim ; 
Some, ling'ring late, their motely trim 

Exhibit to the sun. 



IV. 

« 

To Dissipation's playful eye, 

Such is the life for man ; 
And they that halt, and they that fly, 

Should have no other plan : 
Alike the busy and the gay 
Should sport all night till break of day. 

In Fashion's varying colours drest ; 
Till seiz'd for debt through rude mischance, 
Or chill'd by age, they leave the dance, 

In jail or dust— .to rest. 



86 



Methinks I hear in accents low* 

Some sober quiz reply, 
Poor child of Folly I what art thou ? 

A Bond Street butterfly ! 
Thy choice nor Health nor Nature greets, 
No taste hast thou of vernal sweets, 

Enslav'd by noise, and dress, and play z 
Ere thou art to the country flown, 
The sun will scorch, the Spring be gone, 

Then learc the town in May. 



37 



CHAP. VII. 

HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE ESTIMATED. 

I TRUST my reader is by this time sufficiently 
Acquainted with the general outline of Fashion- 
able life ; it would only be accumulating ob- 
servations unnecessarily to enter farther into 
the subject ; I shall therefore devote the pre- 
sent chapter to a brief investigation of the state 
of happiness among a people who, it must be 
observed, claim to be considered — ^the happiest 
of their species. 

Happiness is, as moralists agree, a relative 
expression ; and indicates the excess of the 
aggregate of good over that of evil in any 
given condition. The foundation of happiness 
therefore must be traced to the ideas which 
those upon whose condition the question turns 
are accustomed to entertain, of good and evil. 
§0 that if we wished to ascertain the amount 



88 



of happiness in a life of Fashion, we must 
make our calculation out of those things 
which constitute respectively good and evil in 
a Fashionable estimation. I have had occa- 
sion to observe before, that a Fashionable life 
is a life of sense ; consequently all the sources 
of happiness in such a condition must be 
confined to the pleasures of sense. Now, it 
must be considered that the pains of sense are 
at least as numerous as its pleasures j and 
that, by a law of Providence subject to very 
few exceptions, those who will have the one, 
must take their proportion of the other with 
them. 

This observation is abundantly confirmed 
by what occurs in the experience of the parties 
under consideration. The pleasures which 
men of Fashion derive from the gratification 
of their animal appetites at the table, the 
gaming-house, and the brothel, have a very 
ample set-ofF in the inconveniences which they 
suffer from arthritic, nervous, and a thousand 
other painful and retributive complaints. Nor 



89 



are the gay and dissipated of the other sex ex- 
empted from the same contingency of con- 
stitutional sufFeriug. Beside the common lot 
of human nature, they have a class of evils of 
their own procuring; and, by excesses as 
imprudent as they are immoral, they bring 
upon themselves a variety of diseases for which 
neither a name nor a remedy can be found. 
There are those, it is true, who avoid much 
of this inconvenience by mixing some dis- 
cretion with their folly, and setting some 
bounds to their favourite gratifications : but 
then it is to be remembered, that these are re- 
straints which render persons of licentious 
minds singularly uneasy ; and they may there- 
fore be considered as administering to pain, 
nearly in proportion as they abridge indul- 
gence. 

But supposing that we were to throw these 
severer items out of the calculation ; there 
would still remain evils enough in a Fashion- 
able condition, to keep the scale from prepon- 
derating on the side of pleasure. To shine in 
I 2 



90 

a ball-room is, no doubt, a high satisfac- 
tion ; but then to be outshone by another 
(which is just as likely to happen,) is at least 
as great a mortification : to be invited to many 
modish parties, is really delightful j but then 
to know those who are invited to more than 
ourselves, is certainly ve^^atious: to find 
one's-self surrounded by people of the first 
Fashion, is charming j but then to be dying 
with heat all the time, is something in the 
other scale : to wear a coat or a head-dress of 
the newest invention, is indeed a pleasure of 
the highest order j but then to see by accident 
articles of the same mode on the back of a 
man-milliner, or the head of a lady's maid, is 
a species of vexation not easily endured. An 
opera, a play, a party, a night passed at a 
dance, or at a cassino, or a faro-table, are all 
events, to be sure, of the happiest occurrence ; 
but then to be disappointed of one^ makes a 
deeper impression on the side of pain, than to 
be gratified with three^ does on that of plea- 
sure : and disappointments will happen where 
many objects are pursued, and where the con- 



91 



ourrence of many instruments is necessary to 
their accomplishment. A drunken coach- 
man, a broken pannel, a sick horse, a saucy 
footman, a mistaken message, a dull play, 
indifferent company, a headach, a heartburn, 
an epidemical disease, or the dread of it, a 
death in the family, Sunday, Fast-day, Pas- 
sion-week, and a thousand other provoking 
casualties, either deprive these entertainments 
of their power of pleasing, or even set them 
wholly aside. I should only weary my reader 
were I to lay before him in detail half the 
catalogue of those minor distresses which em- 
barrass the career of a modish life : he must 
hojvever perceive, from the little which has 
been said, that every pleasure has its counter- 
vailing pain ; and that every sacrifice to diver- 
sion and splendour has its correspondent chas*- 
tisement in vexation and disgrace. 

Hitherto those principles have been assumed 
as the basis of calculation, upon which people 
of Fashion have some advantages in their 
favour ; but there is another ground upon 



9^ 



which (to say the whole truth) it ought to be 
put, and on which all the advantages are 
against them. ]\Ian (it is notorious) is a re- 
fleeting being ; and, do what he will, he mu^t 
reflect. He may choose an habitual career of 
sense; but still he must have, whether he 
seek or shun them, mofnents of Reflection,, 
This is, I admit, extremely inconvenient, but 
then it is without a remedy. My business, 
however, is- not to impugn, or vindicate the 
existence of such a principle ; but to show its 
bearings upon such a life as people of Fashion 
must necessarily lead. Not to enter into par- 
ticulars, what can constitute a heavier afflic- 
tion than for a man of Fashion (or, which is 
the same thing, a man of the world) to be 
obliged to thinly over again the events of his 
licentious career; to be persecuted with re- 
collecting the property he has squandered, 
the wine he has drunk, the seduction he has 
practised, and the duels he has fought? These 
things were well enough at the time, they 
had their humour and their reputation, and 
they were not without their pleasure : but 



93 



then they were designed to be acted^ and not 
rejected upon. The woman of Fashion is 
under the same law, and is therefore exposed 
to the same mental torments. She, too, 
must trace back, (though she would give the 
world to be excused) the steps she has trodden 
in the enchanting walks of dissipation. She 
must live over again every portion of a life 
which, though too fascinating to be declinedj 
is yet too shocking to be thought of. Her 
memory, too, must be haunted with frightful 
scenes, which remind her, at the expense of 
how much health, and property, and time, 
and virtue, she has sustained the figure 
which made her so talked of, and the gaities 
v/hich rendered her so happy. Now these 
are real afflictions ; and that Reflection from 
which they result is, not without reason, felt 
and acknowledged as the scourge of their ex- 
istence, by the ingenuous part at least of the 
Fashionable World. 

Many expedients have indeed been suggested 
for laying this busy principle asleep, and many 



94 

plans struck out for rendering its pangs sup^ 
portable ; but hitherto without success. For, 
though it has been proposed to laugh it away, 
dance it away, drink , it away, or travel it 
away; yet not one of these projects has an-, 
swered the end : and Fashionable casuists are 
as far as ever from finding out a remedy of 
sufficient potency, to cure, or even abate, in 
any material degree, the pains of Reflection, 

And here I cannot but remark how griev- 
ously the seat of this disease (for such it is 
considered) has been mistaken, by those who 
have so lightly undertaken to prescribe for its 
removal. They have manifestly considered 
it as a disorder of the nerves ; and hence all 
the remedies which they have recommended 
are calculated to promote, either by change of 
scene, or by some other mechanical impulse, 
a brisker circulation of the animal spirits. The 
ill success with which each has been attended, 
sufficiently proclaims the fallacy upon which 
they all are founded. If Reflection had been 
pxAy a nervous disturbance, if it had arisen 



&5 



out of any disarrangement of the animal eco* 
nomy, some at least of the Fashionable nos- 
trums would have dispersed the complaint: 
whereas it is notorious, that, under every regi- 
men which has been tried, while the stronger 
symptoms have disappeared, yet the disorder 
has remained in the system; and neither Bath, 
nor Weymouth, nor Tunbridge, nor Town, 
has ever effected a cure. 

The plain truth is (whatever may be insi- 
nuated to the contrary by these Medecins <J- 
la-mode, J that the disease is altogether moral; 
and, consequently, the seat of it is not in the 
nerves, but in the Conscience* There is, in 
fact, nothing new in the complaint; it is in* 
separably connected with a Fashionable career; 
and has been more or less the scourge of all, 
in every age, who have declined the duties 
which they owe " to God and their inferiors," 
I take it to have been a malady of the very 
same description which afflicted Herod in his 
communication with thd Baptist, and which 
made Fehx tremble under the reasoning of 
Paul* It i^s not a litde remarkable, that both 



96 



these men of Fashion (for such no doubt they 
were) fell into the error which has been con- 
demned, in the treatment of their disease; 
and each, there is reason to believe, carried it 
with him to his grave. 

If my reader now adverts to the particulars 
which have been stated, he will be compelled 
to draw conclusions not a little humbling to 
the lofty pretensions of a Fashionable life. In 
few states of society under its present imper- 
fection, is happiness very high : and it might 
not perhaps be very easy to assign the particu- 
lar condition which embraces it in the greatest 
proportion. But surely after the discoveries 
which this discussion has made, we run no 
risk in affirming, that a life of Fashion is not 
that condition. The lot of mankind would 
be wretched indeed, if those were the happiest 
of the species^ who without exemption from 
the pains of sense, are excluded from the plea- 
sures of Reflection : and who, as the price of 
enjoyments derived from the one^ become sub- 
ject to the chastisement of both. 



97 



CHAP. viir. 

DEFECT OF THE SYSTEM ^PLANS OF REFORM 

CONCLUSION. 

A SYSTEM which does so little for the happi- 
ness of its members, as that which has been 
unfolded in the course of this work, must 
have some radical defect ; and it is worthy of 
consideration, whether some steps should not 
be speedily taken, in order to discover the 
nature of that defect, and to provide a compe- 
tent remedy for it. 

I am perfectly aware, that it would be most 
decorous, to let such a measure of inquiry 
originate in the community to whom it pri- 
marily relates ; and if I thought there was any 
chance of the affair being taken up by the 
body, I should satisfy myself with having 
intimated the necessity of such a procedure, 



98 



and leave the people of Fashion to reform 
themselves. 

But I will honestly confess, that I see not 
at present any prospect of such an event. It 
has not, so far as I can understand, been 
hinted in those assemblies which legislate for 
the body, that the system of Fashion requires 
any revision : nor can I discover, among the 
projected arrangements for future seasons, any 
thing like a committee of reform. There is, 
on the contrary, every reason to believe, that 
desigrfe of a very different nature occupy the 
minds of those who influence the community. 
I very much mistake if it is not their intention, 
to carry the system more extensively into 
effect; to make still further conquests upon 
the puny domains of Wisdom and Virtue j and 
to evince, by new modes of dissipation and 
new excuses for adopting them, the endless 
perfectibility of Folly and Vice. Under such 
circumstances, it will scarcely be imputed to 
me as a trespass upon their privileges, if I 
venture to perform that office for them, 



99 



which they are never likely to do for them- 
selves. 

I scruple not then to affirm, that incon- 
sistency is the radical fault of the Fashion- 
able system. This truth is demonstrated by 
every thing that has been said upon their 
polity and laws, their religion and morals, 
their plans of education, and their institutes of 
life* Under every view which has been taken 
of this people, they have exhibited appearances 
truly paradoxical j and been found involved, 
from the beginning to the end of their career, 
in the most palpable and extraordinary con- 
tradictions. The fact indeed is, as their 
history has shown, that the principles upon 
which they act, are essentially at variance with 
each other ; and the effect which these prin- 
ciples have upon their conduct and their feel- 
ings, is only such as might be expected, from 
an everlasting struggle for mastery among 
them. The hand of this people is given 
to Self-denial, but their heart to Sensuality ; 
and the manner in which they are obliged to 
f equivocate with both, will not allow them the 



100 

complete enjoyment of either. The Hbertinism 
they practise shows them nothing but this 
world, the piety they profess hides every thing 
from them but the world to come : thus alter- 
nately impelled and restrained, deluded and 
undeceived, they follow what they love, and 
condemn what they follow ; neither blind 
enough to be wholly led, nor discerning 
enough to see their path ; — with too much 
religion to let them be happy here, and too 
little to make them so hereafter. 

Now I see but two ways by which this 
INCONSISTENCY cau be removed; and as I 
wish to make my work of some use to the 
people of whom it treats, I shall briefly pro- 
pose them in their order. 

1. . The Jirst plan of melioration which I 
would submit to the Fashionable World, is 
that of renouncing the Christian religion. In 
recommending this step, I proceed upon a 
supposition, that the government and laws and 
manners which now prevail, must at all events 



101 



be retained: and upon such a supposition, 
I contend, that renouncing the Christian reli- 
gion is a measure of indispensable necessity. 
For surely if duels must be fought, what can 
be so preposterous as to swear allegiance to a 
law which says, " Thou shall not killP^ If 
injuries must not be forgiven, where is the 
propriety of -employing a prayer in which the 
petitioner declares, that he does forgive them ? 
If the passions are to be gratified^ what end is 
answered by doing homage to those Scriptures 
which so peremptorily declare, that they must 
be mortified? In a word, if swearing, prevari- 
cation, and sensuality ; if a neglect of " the 
duties to God and inferiors," be necessary, or 
even allowable parts of a Fashionable charac- 
ter ; where is the policy, the virtue, or even 
the decency, of connecting it with a religion, 
which stamps these several qualities with the 
deepest guilt, and threatens them with the 
severest retribution ? If a religion of some sort 
be absolutely necessary, let such an one be 
chosen as may possess a correspondence with 
the other parts of the system: let it be % 

K % 



religion in which pride, and resentment, and 
lust, may have their necessary scope ; a reli- 
gion, in short, in which the God of this world 
may be the idol, and the men of this world 
the worshippers. Such an arrangement will 
go a great way towards establishing consist" 
ency : it will dissolve an union from which 
both parties are sufferers ; and liberate at once 
the people of Fashion from a profession which 
involves them in contradiction, and Christia- 
nity from a connexion which covers her with 
disgrace. 

2. If, on the contrary, it should be thought 
material (as I trust it will) to retain Chris^ 
tianity at all events^ the plan of reform must 
be exactly inverted; and the sacrifices taken 
from those laws, and maxims, and habits, 
which interfere with the spirit and the injunc- 
tions of that holy religion. It is altogether 
out of the character of Christianity to act a 
subservient or an accommodating part. Her 
nature, her office, and her object, are all deci- 
dedly adverse to that base alliance into which it 



103 

has been attempted to degrade her. Pure and 
spotless as her native skies, she delights in 
hohness ; because God, from whose bosom 
she came, is holy. Girt with power, and de- 
signed for dominion, she claims the heart as 
her throne, and all the affections as the mi- 
nisters of her will : nor does she consider her 
©bject accomplished until she has cast down 
every lofty imagination, extinguished every 
rebellious lust, and brought into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of Christ. It 
is obvious, therefore, that, if she is to be re- 
tained at all, it must be upon her own 
terms ; and those terms will manifestly re- 
quire an utter renunciation of every measure 
which, under the former plan, it was pro- 
posed to retain. Duels must now no longer 
be fought, nor injuries resentfully pursued, 
nor licentious passions deliberately gratified. 
Swearing must be banished from the lips, pre- 
varication from the thoughts, sensuality from 
the heart ; and that law be expunged which 
dispenses with " the duties to God and infe- 
riors," in order to make way for that immuta- 
ble statute which enjoins them. 



104 



It must not be dissembled, that, in the pro* 
grass of such a reform, certain inconveniences 
will be necessarily encountered ; but these will 
be speedily compensated by an influx of real 
and permanent advantages. The pangs which 
accompanied the " death unto sin," will be 
soon forgotten in the pleasures which result 
from a " life unto righteousness ;" and the 
peace and hope which abound in the way, will 
efface the recollection of those agonistic efforts 
by wh^ch it was entered. 

In the mean time all things will be done 
with decency and order. The whole economy 
of life and conduct will be scrupulously con- 
sulted ; and sueh arrangements introduced as 
will make the several parts and details corres- 
pond and harmonize with each other. Duty 
and recreation will have their proper characters, 
and times, and places, and limits. Every thing, 
in short, will be preserved in the system which 
can facilitate intercourse without impairing 
virtue; and nothing be struck out but what 
administers to vanity, duplicity, and vice. 



105 

Whether changes of such magnitude as 
those which I have described, will ever take 
place upon an extensive scale, I cannot pretend 
to conjecture ; but certain I am, that, if ever 
they should, not only the Fashionable World, 
but society at large, will be very much the 
better for them. Greatly as I wish " the Re- 
formation of manners," and " the Suppres- 
sion of Vice," I see insuperable obstacles to 
each of these events, while rank, and station, 
and wealth, throw their mighty influence into 
the opposite scale. Then — and not till then — > 
will Christianity receive the homage she de- 
serves, and produce the blessings she has 
promised — when " the makers of our man- 
ners" shall submit to her authority ; and the 
PEOPLE of Fashion become the people of 
God. 



JINIS. 



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